Emrah Karaçay (born 1987, Samandağ) is a Turkish dentist and politician, and the mayor of

Samandağ Samandağ, formerly known as Süveydiye (), is a municipality and district of Hatay Province, Turkey. Its area is 384 km2, and its population is 123,447 (2022). It lies at the mouth of the Asi River on the Mediterranean coast, near Turkey's ...

since the

2024 Turkish local elections Local elections in Turkey took place throughout the country's 81 provinces on 31 March 2024. A total of 30 metropolitan and 1,363 district municipal mayors, alongside 1,282 provincial and 21,001 municipal councilors were elected, in addition t ...

Biography

Karaçay was born in 1987 in an

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

Alawite Alawites () are an Arabs, Arab ethnoreligious group who live primarily in the Levant region in West Asia and follow Alawism, a sect of Islam that splintered from early Shia as a ''ghulat'' branch during the ninth century. Alawites venerate A ...

family in Samandağ,

Hatay Hatay Province (, ) is the southernmost Provinces of Turkey, province and Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey, metropolitan municipality of Turkey. Its area is , and its population is 1,686,043 (2022). It is situated mostly outside Anatolia, ...

. There, he completed his primary, secondary, and high school education. He graduated from the Faculty of Dentistry at Samsun Ondokuz Mayıs University and later opened his own private practice in Samandağ, where he works as a dentist. Karaçay is married and has three children.

Career

Since 2019, he has been a member of the Workers' Party of Turkey (TİP). In the 2024 local elections, Emrah Karaçay was elected as the mayor of Samandağ and was the only candidate from the Workers' Party of Turkey to win a seat in this election. In this local election, the Communist Party of Turkey did not nominate its own candidate in the district and supported Karaçay instead. In 2024, Emrah Karaçay initiated cleaning efforts in the Milleyha Wetland Area in the district. He announced that a camera system and observation towers would be established to protect the region's ecological balance. Additionally, municipal police teams intensified inspections against illegal hunting and unlicensed dumping of construction waste. Karaçay collaborated with birdwatchers and volunteers to work on the preservation of the area. In the same year, Karaçay made efforts to establish a natural gas infrastructure in the district.

Views

Karaçay, who identifies himself as an Alawite, especially emphasizes his sensitivity regarding the rights and safety of this ethnic group in Syria following the regime change in the country. In an interview given in 2025, Karaçay stated that the new Syrian government is moving towards an Islamic Sharia regime. He finds the government's "moderate Islam" rhetoric unconvincing, and he highlights that figures like HTS leader al-Shara, despite claiming moderation, actually have much more radical roots.

References

{{Reflist Turkish politicians Turkish Alawites 1987 births People from Samandağ Living people